Appeal No. 96-3059
Application No. 08/170,569
would have been obvious simply because it seems that it would
have been obvious. Although we agree with the examiner that a
window scroll bar and elevator for a single user would clearly
have been suggested by the applied references, we fail to see
how the addition of scroll bars and/or elevators for
additional users is suggested by the applied references.
We note that Bates’ Figure 3 shows a window having no
scroll bar in which all the users’ cursors are located within
that single window. We could easily conceive of a situation
where the text is larger than a single window and would,
therefore, necessitate the standard Windows scroll bar and
elevator in order to view the entire document. In such a
situation, we can also conceive the likelihood that not all
users will be located at the same portion of the document so
that the Bates’ cursors may not all be visible at the same
time. Whether the size of the document and consequent loss of
other users’ on- screen cursors would have suggested the
solution of displaying a visual location cue associated with a
second user as recited in claim 1 is a question which has not
been addressed by the examiner or appellants on this record.
We decline to answer this important question in the absence of
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007